Máhanaxar
by The Hobbit's Rhapsody
Summary: The high seat of the world, it has witnessed both judgment and mercy, the creation and desecration of beauty. — Series of oneshots featuring the Valar in council at the Ring of Doom. Non-chronological.   No. 3 now up:  "Unraveling".
1. Fire and Water

**Fire and Water**

Blue-garbed and surly, he stood encircled, black hair obscuring blacker eyes. If any of the Eldar were to stand among us all, so outwardly unmoved by the very presence of the Ainur, it would be none other than he. The Spirit of Fire had long ago learned arrogance. He wielded it now in form of sullen countenance and stance. Unarmed he stood, empty-handed and fragile-limbed, yet without any intent of bending himself to the Twelve.

Behind us, on Ezellohar, stood horrific and plain to the senses the rotting remnant of our highest glory, the handiwork of Yavanna so brutally undone by Ungoliant and the malevolence of her hunger. The Two Trees lay dead, their Light extinguished; its only echo lay in the possession of the one who stood here at the summons of our lord.

The elf's face glanced over mine, two faces shrouded and cowled.

Manwë put the choice to him plainly. Beside him, Varda's gaze could have shattered stone, yet the Noldo barely winced beneath it.

In the wake of the elf's mute stare, hasty Tulkas urged him to put forth a reply—was not the Light, which the Noldo had imprisoned in his gems, a mere loan from the Queen of the Earth? Whether yea or nay, we should reap an answer from him.

Aulë would have granted the Noldo reprieve from hasty thoughts, but even as he spoke, Fëanor was already rising to the occasion we had set against him. Bitter rejection he spat at us, sullen for our greatness, likening his accomplishment to Yavanna's in it uniqueness, declaring his heart linked to the work of his hands, so that if they should be broken, so should his heart be, and with it his life—the first of the Eldar to be slain in all Aman.

_Not the first._ Three dark words from Mandos drew questioning glances from us all, but there was only silence as we fixed upon the brooding of Fëanor.

At last he rose up, and with an angry vehemence I knew not how to interpret, he denied us his jewels, saying that only if we were to constrain him would he give up the Silmarils to us, and threatened us with everlasting association to Melkor if we so turned ourselves to thievery. My brother the Doomspeaker finished the conversation, curt as ever, with words that were both a judgment and a promise: _Thou hast spoken_.

Ungoliant's filth, which reeked like murk and excrement and hissed stagnantly like spider's venom, crusted over the dulled _laurë_ and _telpë_ of the Trees. Throwing back the hood of grey that I always wore, I went up to them and supinated myself at their feet, and poured out the lament in song and tears which I was accorded for this moment. By my mourning the blackness was washed away, but no glory could even my gifts of healing restore to the stumps.

Messengers! Running from the north, now upon us—elves, coming unbidden to the Ring of Doom, white-faced at our majesty, but with urgent tidings fit for the ears of elf and Vala alike.

A storm had come to Formenos, wrought of nameless power and evil, and at its heart came Melkor: now gone from Arda was the life of Finwë, Noldor-king, and the Silmarils.

With howled words so bitter I wondered that they did not sear the air, Fëanor cast the name Morgoth—Black Foe—upon Melkor, and cursed the summons that had placed him in safety at Máhanaxar rather than in the thick of death at Formenos. Could the tide have been lessened by his presence, as if Fëanor were the moon of fate? From Námo's dark eyes, I thought it could not be so, and that if he had been there Fëanor would be the second blood to be spilled in the Blessed Realm. Yet Fëanor seemed not to see this. He railed at all of us, utterly wroth.

Even in the wind of his rage, I sorrowed on his behalf. The fire stoked in that one was wrought of love, at its deepest—love shaped by a deep and overmastering pride, but though his actions often brought loss and sorrow to those in his way he did not always mean it so. His eyes pierced me like Varda's stars, and I felt within me his grief, for his father had held in him a higher love than any other, even his love for the Silmarils.

The darkness of his wild heart meshed with the darkness of the night as he fled, swift-footed, back to his homeland.

The weeping with which I was so familiar had come onto the face of Yavanna, and even Aulë's touch could not assail her grief at the loss of the Two Trees. Yet in her there was left no healing; her song now silenced by fate, her tears were only sorrow, and no more. Grief found now a harbor in all of our hearts, for the losses Arda had suffered and would yet suffer.

Manwë looked soberly upon Námo, who bore the faraway countenance that signified his communion with the will of Eru. He spoke out of shadow into darkness.

_The Doom of the Noldor is nigh._


	2. Illuminate

**Illuminate**

We stood before the sea of shattered mist, the fragments of Illuin and Ormal, the Twin Lamps which had lit Arda. We salvaged the designs of our hearts, and rebuilt Aman. At that time the Music of the Ainur, which flowed from the heart of Ilúvatar, granted me a song which I would make once and never again.

I sat upon the greenness at the foot of the Mound, before our newly hallowed Valmar and the Ring of Doom where my kin were gathered, above the world that fell silent for this moment alone, and sang into form the Light of Valinor itself: two trees, entwined as brother and sister, to illume the world; towers beneath the roof of Varda's stars.

Laurelin – She who was the laughter of Eru, casting gilt joy across the landscape of Arda, shimmering newly-hatched green and gold and glorious. From her branches sprang flowers and fruits, spilling out rain like holy fire. She was the bright lady of Corollairë, and spoke ever of loving and doing and dancing, when I turned my ear to her glow.

Telperion – He who was the gentlest heart of the One, compassion and the showing of the ways. Sooner grown was he than Laurelin; mature green and bright silver he glittered. From his blossoms and leaves slipped dew like gems and silver, and though his light, paler and cooler than his sister's, created shadows and movement, he never once whispered of real darkness, nor of stealth or tearing down. He smiled ever in tranquility and knowledge.

A hundred names were bestowed with grateful adoration upon each tree, in prose and song alike, all testament to their splendor. Varda gathered the gilt rain and the filigree dew and formed great wells, whose light did not soon fade, whether she kept them close or sent them into the aether or the earth.

In the working of the Trees, summer and Bliss came to rest upon Valinor, and we sorrowed no more after our lost genesis at Almaren.

As one tree waxed, so the other waned and seemed to die, until some measure had passed and it sprang up again. In a rhythm we saw that only one tree shone at a time, except for one measure at each end of the cycle in which the mingled light of the Trees shone together and lit all Valinor with their astonishing brilliance, almost as the Lamps had once shone immutably. We arranged an order of hours around the rise and decline of each Tree, and reckoned Day and Night for Arda, and in this creation, the gift Eru set upon my shoulders, was woven the fate of a history even we could not foresee.

And thus, to the awe of the Ainur and all that dwelled upon Arda, was set in motion Time.


	3. Unraveling

**A/N: I'm so excited to finally be updating this! I promise I never meant for it to take more than two whole months, and I offer my most profuse apologies! I actually started this vignette the same day I posted Illuminate, but I just couldn't tie it all up to my satisfaction and it's been rewritten several times. But here it is at long last! I hope you enjoy.**

* * *

><p><strong>Unraveling<strong>

I am accustomed to dealing with trouble, but I never expected to find it breeding among the princes of Ilúvatar's firstborn.

The first sword drawn against a friend in Arda was drawn by one elf-prince against another. Though no bloodshed was done, the Valar called court in the Ring of Doom, and Fëanor who had threatened his half-brother Fingolfin was summoned by my call to stand before us, and with him all the elves who had any part or knowledge in the doings of the Spirit of Fire. Gathered now, they are somber and still, for once communally uncertain of foot. None dare speak.

The elf stands kindled, but not yet burning. I cannot understand the heart of his doom. Is not peace better than hate? What reason can Fëanor have for mongering war amidst his brethren?

Stone limbs come forward, bringing one body at a time to bear witness. Words spool into the open, making stories, unveiling roots buried in the loam of previously unconnected circumstances. The Children tell us all.

In a moment I see the truth of it: my brother has done this. It is he who is at the heart of this evil, he who has corrupted Fëanor, though the elf despises him more deeply than does anyone, even my star-queen.

When at last these words are voiced, Tulkas leaps up, his presence flexing as he swears justice on Melkor. He is gone in a moment, leaping over the mountains, his prowess lent at once to the chase of his dark quarry.

At my side, Elentári looks on with hard eyes, and I can feel her wrath at Melkor rousing from its drowse. Of all the Valar, she has felt and hated most keenly the evil of the foe. The next time I meet her eyes, I will have to relive again the day I released Melkor from the imprisonment of Mandos and unleashed the seedlings of this animosity upon Arda. She will not blame me—she could not accuse Súlimo, whom she loves, even though I might deserve it; the single broken link of our circle has brought evil itself upon the world, and further fracture among us could destroy it, or doom it—but I will nonetheless feel her pain, her compressed fury. I think that she must understand something at his heart that I cannot. Somehow her eyes can pierce further into the veils of evil than mine, the farsighted, ever shall.

Whatever Melkor did at the heart of the matter, however, we cannot hold Fëanor blameless. We have sworn that he will answer to us, and so he shall. The weight of his crime hangs like thunder over Aman, and restitution must be made.

Without voice, in the space of minutes, we confer. The elves cannot hear us, nor read the hearts of the Valar as we debate over the fate of this little one. We confer without overmuch emotion, for the Ainur do not know fear, though tightly bound anger slips into the words of Vairë especially, whose tapestries have been snarled by the workings of this little Eldar. Mandos says nothing, though I can read foretelling in his face. Some darkness, much greater than this—but Eru cautions us not to speak of it yet.

At my bidding, the Doomsman speaks reprimand and banishment upon the elf, confers upon him exile from Tirion. These are words that riddle the elf with loss, though still he stands, barely trembling. Chill he seems still, a pyre not yet taken to torch. It is a strange countenance on him.

Fingolfin, his wronged kinsman, turns the pale and gentle eyes of forgiveness on him, promises to release him, but Fëanor makes no answer. I look at Varda, and she at me; even together, though we have the farthest sight and keenest hearing of any being upon Arda, we cannot make out the workings of this troubled heart.

Did they not once swear a vow to be ever brothers, to ever go where the other went? Even if Fingolfin stands by him in this valley, he must not follow him into the underworld where I think Fëanor may yet go.

Sometimes the Eldar forget that even we, though mighty Ainur who have sung the Music and thus the worlds into being, cannot see all.

_He will not stay stagnant, nor plead for us to let him return,_ says Elentári, smooth-faced._ The machinations of Fëanor, whether for good or evil, will not halt because we separate him from the only home he has known._

_Eru knows what this way comes. _The Valar are rarely swayed in their course, and in certainty I stand now._ We follow not our own hearts in this matter—for we have seen what comes of that._

There is no need to speak his name again. Nessa blinks, and I know she is thinking of her mate, even now on the scent of him, and she does not fear, but she wonders. As do we all.

The Children scatter when we rise to go, and I can hear among them whispers of triumph, of grief, of mockery, of bewilderment, of fear.

It is not division between the Noldorin houses alone that has been spawned here. Eru keep us—yet I wonder if the shadow by which we tried to protect the Children from Melkor's destruction has instead only fostered the same darkness within them. I know not how to keep them.

I know not if we are even meant to.


End file.
